Posts by steviebuk 2630 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Feb 2017
But us because we've now seen your code and although we won't, obviously, use it code for code, you just know we're gonna rip off the way you went about using your code. You've given us some great ideas for free. Oh...whats that... you'll sue will you? Have you seen our bank account. Its never ending so we'll just make the suit never ending till you're bankrupt.
Are we cunts? Yes. Do we care? No.
I'm hoping someone else remembers this. I've looked all over the Internet and asked on a bus enthusiasts forum but can't find any photos.
Back in the 80s. Probably early 80s, in London the double deckers for some reason would only allow you to get on and off the bus at same door. So from what I remember, and I was only about 6 or 7 when used to catch it as was before my mum could drive, when you got on the base there was a partition down the centre so separate those getting on and off the bus. Anyone else remember this setup?
Also from the 80s you'd pay the driver and he had a machine that had a shoot. When he'd click the till for your change, it would slide down the shoot into the tray. I can't find any references to any of this online and wondering if its one of my recently created false memories I've been having?
I never seemed to have much of a wait for the 65 from what I remember. So much so, and before smartphones to keep me busy. If the first 65 was too busy, I'd wait for the next one. One day I was glad I did. Because I'd sit upstairs at the front. That way I could see all the traffic and see how many were at the next stop so would then know how long you'd be waiting at each stop. Anyway. This one day I waited for the 2nd 65 as first was too packed. It arrived, I got my favourite seat. We got around the one way system heading out of Kingston only to pass the bus I skipped. It had stopped because, sadly, it had hit a school kid that ran out in front of it. I think the kid was alright. Was weird knowing I'd have seen the whole thing if I'd taken that first bus.
The very bus I used to go to Kingston uni on in 1999. The whole route. From Ealing Broadway to Kingston. Would then wait outside Waterstones in Kingston waiting to go home, struggling not to fall asleep on the route. Was also the reason I was late for programming lectures each week, because they'd start at 9 and bus would take an hour to get there. I'd also come to realise, I no longer wanted to do programming.
Went recently after not having been there for 17 years. Just went shopping, had to look on the map to find out where I used to wait for the bus. Apparently the Waterstones is moving.
Of no interest to anyone but me but thought I'd air this info anyway :)
"54,000 people downloaded the software" can request their data now be removed.
The fact Matt couldn't even get his own, personal app right, shows we need not listen to any of his advice regarding IT.
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2018/02/01/matt_hancock_app_privacy_bug_ed_vaizey/
" File attachments that you send are not included with the email, but sent as links to files stored on Basecamp's servers." Don't want them deciding what to dump or not, it also won't stop scammers.
At work I've seen legit mailboxes from companies that have had compromised accounts, so they'd be on the allowed list, who then send the infected document in a password protected zip so the likes of Basecamps servers wouldn't be able to scan. The 2nd email they send you the password. Anyone not clued up will fall for it so still get exposed to the scam email.
That is what their idea won't fix. Is legit, allowed list accounts, being compromised and sending spam.
And who wants to pay $99 a year for "A new way of doing email". Especially, like others have said, for a company that could, at any moment, go bust before you've had a chance to download all the attachments that were sent to you.
...when the police are the problem.
Alexandra Heal won the Private Eye Paul Foot award this year for her Nowhere To Turn project. It highlights some victims of domestic abuse where the abuser was a police officer.
“The more research I did into this story, the more women I found who had suffered domestic abuse at the hands of police. In these cases, the abusers were members of the police force themselves and would use their power to intimidate the victim into silence.
“Some of the police forces would avoid disciplining their officers who were reported for domestic abuse by saying that their actions were carried out in their personal lives rather than on the job.”
I think the issue is, Sat Navs insistence in moving everything to the cloud and possibly trying to make Windows software as service with a yearly fee (if they did that I think they'd slowly kill it as everyone would move to, god forbid, Apple and, better, Linux). And although I have a man crush on Mark Russinovich cause of his amazing sysinteral tools and his yearly (which he's sadly now stopped doing) talks on using the tools with real world examples, even he's pushing for cloud but then he is now the head of Azure.
Yes he is a cunt but I was using WhatsApp before he owned it and when I had to pay yearly for it. I enjoyed it, was very useful and now, although I hate Facebook, I'll stick with WhatsApp. I'm also well aware for it to be free they'll have sold my data. Not bothered. Rather that than have to pay for WhatsApp. If I get cold called because of it, I simply say nothing and hang up. So all good.
With profile or being discovered is on by default and you have to specially go in and set yourself to private or allow only your contacts to add you.
Which means I still have old friends I no longer see in my phone book with their old number. That number that now belongs to someone else who hasn't hidden their profile. So I can now see "Sally" appears to now be "Dave".
"Is there any good reason"
Yes. Some years ago I ended up spending over £100 in txt messages as I'd gone over my limit. Then a few years later I'd reach my limit so had to wait for the new month. Then I finally forced myself to sort out my old shitty contract.
Anyway. I then discovered WhatsApp and realised I could essentially send txt messages and picture messages for free.
"activists (white people) in the software community have taken the opportunity to remind people that they're trying to do away with terminology tied to racial oppression. Much like the white people that try and ban Christmas trees in retail spaces in some councils, ignoring the fact other races also enjoy Christmas just for the holiday season it is.
Its not beyond hokey when you look at those models or real AI being given a reward for completion of a task but not being given strict enough instructions not to cheat. Yes, its highly unlikely if we take AI safety serious enough but also not impossible.
And you can never say true General Intelligence AI is impossible. Its highly improbable at the moment but we don't know what we'll invent in the future that may make it possible.
...kill us all.
I don't wear a tinfoil hat. Its fine looking into AI but I think we have to be careful with it. Having watched Rob Miles video recently on AI safety and specification gaming.
You'll give the AI a reward for finding a cure for Covid 19. But because the AI is allowed to do its own thing and learn. It will just learn it can just kill everyone to get its reward. If there are no humans to cure, it doesn't have to find a cure but can still claim its reward.
https://youtu.be/nKJlF-olKmg
And below the list of results.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRPiprOaC3HsCf5Tuum8bRfzYUiKLRqJmbOoC-32JorNdfyTiRRsR7Ea5eWtvsWzuxo8bjOxCG84dAg/pubhtml
One of the amusing and scary ones is the agent that would constantly kill itself at the end of level 1 to avoid losing at the end of level 2.
...why the owners of Star Trek haven't sued yet. As his "Space Force" badge is a clear rip off of Star Fleets badge. It really feels like he got one of his arse kissers to do the logo, who has no clue about design so just trawled the Internet until they found something they liked.
....Darren Jones also ask why the Post Office management that was involved in this have now been promoted to other government contracts, instead of severing jail time or at least being blacklisted from any senior position again. We have Paula Vennells who still has her CBE and now the chair of Imperial College Healthcare Trust.
All mentioned in The Private Eye recently.
Its all fucked up, considering people went to jail and others died. All we're hearing again is "Lessons have been learnt". What? That appears people in senior positions are void of prosecution.
...Google Meet. The amount of information it collects for the admins in GSuite admin and I think sends to Google directly.
I've removed my GSuite details.
Client logs upload
Applied at 'DOMAIN NAME HERE'
Include web-browser and mobile app logs with diagnostic data sent to Google.
Logs include users' email addresses and additional info.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/7304109
Client logs upload Users’ web browser and mobile app log information is sent to Google. This includes users’ email addresses and other information. Google uses it to help troubleshoot support requests from your organization.
When a meeting is going on you can see who is in it, even if they aren't related to your company. See their e-mail address and if the score they give the meeting at the end if they reply.
Meeting code
Organizer
Started
Duration
Size
participants
Network congestion
% of meeting
Packet loss
average (max)
Jitter
ms avg (max)
Score
lowest
I don't use it. I remember going on it and Friends Reunited. Saw a few old school "people" and realised they were the same cocks now as they were in school. Realised people just make up bullshit about their lives so have avoided it since.
I still don't get it because people love to boost about their lives on it and their past friends get jealous, not realising most of the shit on Facebook is bollocks. Why do strangers feel the need to share their kids with the world, I don't get it.
However, I do see and understand why others use it. A ex manager at work only ever used it to see her relatives in Australia, an old woman I used to work with who isn't into IT uses it to keep in touch with people and chat to them and then you have my sister and brother-in-law. I pointed my sister and brother-in-law in the direction of Facebook a few years back, for their small building work business. I suggested its so much easier than me, attempting, poorly, to manage their own domain that they couldn't work out how to upload images to. The local barbers uses Facebook to get his opening and special closes times out there because he's got no time to deal with a proper domain.
So although I hate Facebook, I can see why some people insist on using it.
What I can't understand is people moaning about its privacy issues when they are getting to use it for free. If you don't like it's privacy issues, stop using it, its not a human right to use it. I'm sure most of those moaning would refuse to pay a subscription fee for it with no adverts.
And Crapita will get it. Then, eventually Crapita will go bust. 'Lessons will be learned' they'll out source to Crapita's replacement, which will just be as shit and they'll discover the directors who watched over the failure of Crapita, are now running this new outsourced company.
It was awful. He said "super pumped" which is bad enough as it is, then the even more bullshit "Oh isn't it cute, my daughter accidentally interrupts the filming" yeah, did you pay her for that acting?
Glad I got rid of My Surface Pro 4 last year. Was a bit of an impulse buy, wanted something for digital drawing. But like many of my "ideas" I never really used it. It barely played games. Was able to play Capitalism Lab while on the Euro Star heading to Belgium one year :) because I hardly used it, the screen issue never hit me, but I suspect its new owner will have to get a replacement at some point.
Never purchasing any Surface line again.
Its difficult to resist as we're a curious lot in IT. Nowhere near a bank but in a lodge on IOW, I've snooped round in the loft and found their, quite decent switch that they use for each lodge. Good job I did as one of the bedroom TVs wasn't working. And turned out to be a loose cable in the switch, wasn't clicked into place. They correctly disabled all ports on the switch that weren't in use and the WiFi for each lodge had isolation on. The only shit part was their bullshit advertising of fast internet. It was far from it, it was worse than dialup.
Another site, the whole park was wide open. From the lodge you could get to the main router that control all the other 6 or 7 lodges. The password was left as the default. You could even connect to the printer in their office. Was at Christmas. I was very tempted to send a print but didn't.
Another place with a few lodges spaced a good distance apart also had issues. But the couple that run it are nice so I reported the issues via email. And gave them free IT advice or what to do to fix the issues (I guess thats why I have no money, giving advice for free instead of becoming a bullshitting consultant)
I also remember Turbo Pascal from the 90s and college. Recently found my old Lottery Number Picker from late 90s that I'd written in Pascal. Unfortunately not the source code.
My story of Pascal, for me, was interesting. I was never a good programmer. I enjoyed it but struggled to get my head round it, still do.
I wrote a long winded routine for the lottery program, my lecturer looks and managed to shorten the routine massively.
I discovered how to write to a file one week, so I then wrote, while at college in the Windows 3.11 days, a sniffer program. While having my programming lessons and during times using them in study periods, I'd note when students booted the machines, they'd forget to switch to the network drive, say F: drive and would type 'login' in DOS on the C: drive, it not being there would get an error so then they'd switch drives.
So I wrote my version of login and would stick it on the C: drive to see if it would work and if people would fall for it. I didn't know how to hash out what you typed so instead of * you'd see your password, get an bullshit error I'd display, realise you were on the wrong drive, switch to the correct drive and login as normal. Meanwhile my login program had grabbed your user name and password and stored them in a file called assignment.doc, because students also would leave their documents all over the C:
Again, not being a good programmer the details would be written in plain text. If you found the assignment file, you'd be able to read it and realise your machines were compromised. I genuinely only wrote it to see if it would work. I was amazed it did. I still remember one password that it grabbed that worked, 'masterofpuppets" once logged in as the user, we quickly logged out after. I told my college friends, who were also amazed by it to NEVER ABUSE IT. I left it at that. Never used it after that one account I got into, and never did anything bad with that account. I also warned them, if you abuse it and get caught, I had nothing to do with it.
So the day came when the dicks were messing around with it. Lucky for me I was bunking off that day as couldn't be bothered to go in. There was also a stupid cartoon animation tool on the machines that one idiot of the group of friends would use, to make piss take cartoon animations of the lecturers. The rule was, if you got caught pressing the reset button on a machine, you were up to something. They got caught that day. Got caught with the login program on them and the cartoons.
It all kicked off. They were pulled into interviews. It was serious. We had a big meeting in the hall over this login program that was found on the machines. That it was illegal blah blah. That meeting was to say 2 students have been kicked off the course and one given a suspension. I escaped. Lucky for me they kept quiet over where they got it or who wrote it. No one ever found out it was me. I carried on at that college for another 4 years with 2 different IT related courses. I'd learnt my lesson and didn't do anything like that again there.
In their interviews they told me the lecturers asked who created this program? Its very well written blah blah. And this is why I remember it so well. I said they are talking bollocks. They are saying that to see if you confess to writing the code. Why did I know they were talking bollocks? Because the code I'd written was in the Pascal help file :o) I'd just added the text the college display when logging in.
Some years later, while my cousin was at Leeds Uni I told him this story. He said they used a similar system, could I write the program for him. Still being naive I said sure and also because I'd been reading the 2600 magazine. In that they had a piece about Pascal and how to do very basic encryption for writing to files. Ooo, I could add that to my sniffer program. All it did was you'd type A, it would plus 20 to the ASCII value and write that to the assignment.doc file. I'd stick other random crap in the file also. So if you found that file, you'd just think it was a corrupted student assignment file and just delete it and think no more of it. You'd take that file home and decrypt with the decryption program that simply minused 20 from what was in the file. I never found out if he ever used it or not. He became a Doctor, so if he did use it, he never got caught.
There is nothing. No new telemetry. I've installed ESET on a clean VM. Run the latest Process Explorer and nothing. No attempts at connections out.
The only time you'll see it attempt to connect out is when it goes to
status.thawte.com
Which, I believe is the signature check and if you do VirusTotal checks.
From their forums
"We have most definitely not added any telemetry to Process Explorer. The main change in the latest version was to resolve an issue with using the wrong icons. In the last year or so all changes to Process Explorer have been bugfixes only.
Could you tell me what telemetry you think you are seeing?
MarkC(MSFT)"
Would like to see the evidence you have to I can update the post.
..shit. Maybe I'm biased as I love Process Explorer or "Super Task Manager" as David Solomon used to call it. One of the reasons Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell wrote it is because of how poor Task Manager is at showing anything useful.
Take for example The Case Of the Pausing Explorer that we had at work way back in 2011 in XP. Explorer would freeze when trying to access network drives, for about 5-10mins then suddenly all files would appear. Not being given time to troubleshoot I was told to just "Rebuild the laptop". I argued that isn't fixing the issue, we've already seen it comes back. All Task Manager showed was Explorer running at 50%.
Eventually I convinced my boss to let me look. Fired up Process Explorer on a laptop with the issue. Again could see Explorer at 50% but Process Explorer would allow you to view what .dlls that process was actually running. And there it was. Within Explorer was a .dll from PGP running at 50% or more. The encryption software that we ran on the laptops.
Turns out all the .dll was doing was scanning the network for encrypted files so it could change their icon to show they were encrypted. We didn't encrypt files just the whole OS so was pointless. Looked up the .dll, found PGP mentioned the issue we were having and that it was safe to disable the .dll.
Once disabled on an affected machine, problem solved in less than a min, compared to having to rebuild the system that I'd been forced to do for over a month by the PHB.
Reminds me of my story I have mentioned recently about "Netbook gate".
I e-mail the stake holder and people I think should know "Just so you're aware, this Trust is going to put some netbooks on the network because they want to test them. I'm helping so to make sure they are done properly."
Silence.
3 months later "Anyone know why these Netbooks are on the network". Yes, I told you about them 3 months ago.
All hell breaks loose, I get pulled into a potential disciplinary. If I only I'd been sensible back then and knew they can't just bully you like that. I'd have also then printed off the e-mail where I'd informed them all 3 months earlier only to be ignored.
I disagree with the Office Ribbon. Although at first I thought WTF!, when I was shown how to use it, I began to like it.
But his "vision" for Windows UI was just plain shit.
I think gone are the days when they used to do focus groups. I watched a video, years ago, I believe it was about the development of Windows and the testing they went through.
They'd sit a user in front of a machine, sit with them and ask them to speak aloud what they are doing, why they are moving to a part of the screen. What they are having issues with etc. So they could make a better GUI.
Now, you just get some hipster knob who decided they have a "vision" and then convince other people to allow them to try out that vision and NO ONE is allowed to say "But this is shit".
...at the end of this, it proves what I said YEARS ago where I used to work. "Why are you travelling 20 miles each month (various depending on which site is the flavour of the month for the meetups) or ever 2 weeks for your 'meetings' and for the "Request for Change" meetings? You're fucking IT, you can use conference calling".
Windows 3.1.1 and in the study room of college in early 90s. Appears the computers aren't locked down and I had a bit of free software off a cover disc (I'm still looking for it to this day with no joy :( ). It was a screensaver or it might of been a standalone app that was like a screensaver that had tiny spiders on it. When it would kick off, it had taken a screenshot of your desktop and the tiny spiders would start to eat all the screen. All you had to do was move the mouse and it would stop and your work would look normal again.
Being the immature dick I was back then I thought it would be funny to stick this on all the study room PCs (I think there were 6) and set a timer for it to go off. Sat next to a lady one day and she panicked as it kicked off as she was doing her course work and hadn't saved.
Funny at first as caught a few before who moved the mouse and it stopped. But she was getting more panicked and backed away from the mouse. Under my breath I was shouting, just move the fucking mouse. I can't remember what happened. I couldn't own up as would off gotten kicked off the course. But, with hindsight I could of said I'd seen the issue before just move the mouse. But having just come from school, it wasn't the dun thing to be helpful or talk to other people.
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